Billy Knapp

Billy Knapp was an American wagon train leader and Oregon Trail pioneer during the 1870s.

Biography
Billy Knapp was born in the American South, and he made a living leading wagon trains down the Oregon Trail with Granger Arthur. By 1873, however, he no longer wanted to continue wandering, as he saw how Arthur was growing old, and he wanted to settle down and start a family. He fell in love with Alice Longabaugh, an unmarried woman whose only provider, her brother Gilbert Longabaugh, died of cholera early on their travel down the trail. Knapp helped to provide for Longabaugh's needs, even scaring off her brother's pet dog President Pierce to relieve her of other people's criticism, and he soon fell in love with her. One night, he told her that he was willing to assume her debt and that the 1872 Homestead Act provided 640 acres of land to married couples; he then proposed to marry Alice and settle down with her once they reached Oregon. Alice agreed, but, the next day, she shot herself during a Sioux attack, following Arthur's advice to kill herself rather than fall into their hands and be raped and tortured. Arthur, who had survived the attack by briefly playing dead, was left with the impossible task of telling Knapp what had happened, especially as he had told Alice to shoot herself if he appeared to be dead.